


Beloved of Ra

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Viva La Vida - Coldplay
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1793410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meritre sweeps the streets she used to own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beloved of Ra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganstern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganstern/gifts).



Meritre brushed a broom back and forth, clearing away the dust and dirt left by a thousand trampling feet in front of her small shop and smaller home. Perhaps today there would be no armies marching through the city streets. Perhaps today there would be peace enough for children to play, for customers to come.

Perhaps today the sun would rise in the west, frogs would hop in from the desert, and Iset would come home to Meritre.

That last was the least likely, of course, Meritre thought as she turned her attention to the gold amulets-to-be that were her main task for the day (a commission for a noblewoman named Nofret, who wanted a way to determine trustworthiness of potential servants before taking them on). Iset would be looking, were she looking, for a woman named Meritamun, and if Meritre were still that woman, delicate as the perfume of the blue lotus, she would still be named Meritamun. It would be safe, if it were possible for anyone from the least street child to the greatest noble to be safe these days. Many women a few days or months or years younger than she-who-had-been Pharaoh Meritamun also bore the name Meritamun, and it would be easy to say she was months younger than she in truth was. But Meritre had the strength granted by the white lotus, and was no longer the girl Meritamun, and Iset would know nothing of this change because Iset left before the change began.

Indeed, thought Meritre, watching the gold she was annealing begin faintly to glow a dark red, Iset's departure might have marked the moment the smelting and annealing and hammering of Meritamun into Meritre began...

Meritre plunged the gold into cool water with a splash and a hiss and watched bubbles form on the gold's surface. A flick of Meritre's magic chased the bubbles away, and another kept the water cool despite the red-hot gold.

What good had magic ever truly done Meritamun? Goldsmithing had always been her one true love, but the little magics of the artisan were of no use in politics or war.

The ringing of hammer strike after hammer strike on the sheet of gold was interrupted by a knock on Meritre's shop's door. Meritre did not set down the hammer when she went to answer the door—if it were someone who thought they'd found Meritamun who had been Pharaoh, she would probably need a weapon. Having the hammer in hand would at least give her a moment's advantage, long enough to draw the small bronze knife at her waist, which she would certainly need if this were one of Sobekhotep's people.

The woman at the door had skin the same bronze shade as Meritre's knife, paler than Meritre's copper skin, and stood a few fingerlengths taller than Meritre. She wore a veil over her hair and the lower half of her face, and cradled a black kitten in one arm. Her eyes—familiar, so very familiar.

"Is there something I can do for you?" Meritre asked.

"I'm looking for a goldsmith and shopkeeper, Meritre by name," said the woman. "I am told you are she."

Meritre relaxed her grip on her hammer. "I am she," she said.

"I bring the blessing of Bast—" The woman nodded at the kitten, and Meritre stiffened. The last thing Reketre—and who could Meritamun have trusted, if not Reketre—had told her was that any message from Reketre would come by someone who mentioned blackness in the same breath in which they invoked the protection of Bast. "Are you all right?" the woman asked.

"I'm fine," said Meritre, her hand clenching tighter around the hammer and longing for the knife. But this was a friend, sent by Reketre. "I'm fine."

"I bring, as I said, the blessing of Bast, and one of her lesser avatars, who hopes she may find nourishment in this house," said the woman, "and I bring news of friends."

"Friends are always welcome in this house," said Meritre, hearing her voice shake. What news could Reketre possibly be sending? She stretched out a hand to the kitten, who graciously accepted petting as her due.

"May I come in?" asked the woman. Meritre stepped back—the kitten yowled and swatted after her retreating hand—and gestured the woman inside. The woman glanced over the amulets on display. "Your work seems skillful," she said. "Both as an artisan and as a mage."

"I—thank you," said Meritre. "I do what little I can to keep my people safe." Safe from whom, there was no need to say.

"And well done, from what your neighbors tell me," said the woman. She set down the kitten and picked up an amulet, one of the frog ones of Heqet (designed for safety from the dangers of childbirth rather than the dangers of soldiers), and nodded. "Well done indeed."

A flaw of Meritamun's had always been impatience, and Meritre shared that flaw. "What news do you bring?" she asked.

The woman's hands flicked out, a sequence of glyphs glowing in the air before fading: a familiar sequence, from late-night conversations with Iset when the worst either of them had to fear if overheard was a stern word and being sent back to bed. "Reketre tells me all is in readiness, should you wish to retake the throne."

Meritre's mouth fell open. What in Amun's name— "Who would ever want to be king?" she said when she had recovered from the shock of it.

"The girl Meritamun seemed to enjoy it," said the woman. "I know very little of the woman Meritre."

"You have an advantage over me," said Meritre. "You know something about the person whose life you are trying to shatter."

The woman removed her veil. Meritre stared, dropped her hammer, stumbled forward into Iset's arms.

"I'm sorry," said Iset. "I should never have abandoned you."

"It's all right," mumbled Meritre into her shoulder, "I understand—Meritamun never did, but Meritre does—" Meritamun, after all, had been the one to betray Iset, not (though it had taken years to understand this) the other way around. "No one ever told me the truth, after you left. Not even Reketre. No one was ever honest with me."

"I'm here now," said Iset, stroking Meritre's back. "I'm here now."

"I'm sorry I drove you away," said Meritre, and burst into tears.

"It's all right," said Iset. "It's all right now, my king—"

"Don't call me that," snapped Meritre. "I'm not your king. Meritre was never anyone's king."

"But you could be," said Iset. "Reketre says—"

"I know," interrupted Meritre. "You told me. Tell me the truth, Iset. Would I just be a pretty face on a puppet string, or would I be king in truth? How likely is it that I would be setting out to get myself killed? And most important, what do my people need of me? Because _obviously_ the way I can do the most good is by getting my people killed, not by staying here and making amulets to keep them alive. Obviously that's where my artisan magic will come in most handy, too."

Meritre couldn't see Iset's eyes, but knew Iset had rolled hers nonetheless. "I missed you, my beloved," said Iset. "And...I don't know. You should talk to Reketre before you decide, at least. But you know what Sobekhotep's soldiers think they can get away with doing."

Theft was the least of it, and even the luckiest of Meritre's people could ill afford anything being stolen from them.

"I must do as my people need of me," said Meritre. "But I don't know what that is." Despite a horrible suspicion that she did know: "And—I'm _happy_ here."

Well, Meritre wasn't constantly looking over her shoulder for fear of a knife in the back. But that was the same thing, wasn't it?

"Whatever you decide, I'll stay with you," said Iset.

Meritre pulled back far enough to smile up at Iset. "Right now what I'm deciding is to finish that amulet," she said. She leaned down to pick up her dropped hammer and led the way back into her workshop.

The magic on the nearly-completed amulet for Nofret's set was solid enough despite the incompleteness, Meritre thought, that it should know whether Iset were trustworthy. It wasn't raising an alarm. Of course, that might be because the kitten had knocked it down to the floor and was now batting it around; the amulet might be confused. Meritre plucked the amulet out of the kitten's reach. "Hold this," she told Iset, handing it over, and watched as Iset took it. It did not change color in the least.

That was a hopeful sign.

"Yes," Meritre said, pointedly not committing to anything beyond this: she needed more information for such a decision before she could make it. "I'll talk to Reketre."


End file.
